


Reverb

by Experiment413



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, F/M, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Attempted murder, Implied/Referenced Murder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Some characters only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 12:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8014777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Experiment413/pseuds/Experiment413
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the android takeover has finished and the peace has set in, Hadron has to adapt to living with the android who tried to kill her when they first met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reverb

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Endangered](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1797568) by [Mortior](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortior/pseuds/Mortior). 



> I just finished Endangered.  
> Here's these assholes in this verse.  
> Beta'd by Voting.

You were once there, in the midst of everything. The fighting was getting longer, the androids were suddenly a hundred times stronger. You were just scavenging for supplies for your compound. You rounded a corner, but found yourself faced with one of your own nightmares. A tall android, golden circuits sprawling its body, and when it turned, you noticed something you’d never seen in those mechanical monstrosities before. You were caught by dual-colored eyes, and you had to remind yourself to move.

 

You bolted out, and the thing chased you. You pictured yourself being torn limb from limb, as you’d seen happen to so many of your friends. Dead, dead, dead, you remember once the death toll was so high that Beatrice didn’t know what to do, and when she turned to you, you couldn’t respond, you just stared at the bloodstains on the walls.

 

You scaled a fence, but the android covered in half the time you did. The thing was catching up, outspeeding you. You hit a wall, in a position in which you’d seen so many people die before you could’ve fired the EMP gun. The android poised itself to kill, wires opening their sharp metal claws, as you scrambled through your pockets, and pulled out the EMP gun.

 

Suddenly, the thing died. You didn’t even pull the trigger. It hit the floor, circuits going lifeless in front of you. You stayed put, and was simply too stunned to move. Then the gold flickered back on, and it raised its head, but with a new… confusion to it.

“What happened…?” it uttered.

 

You woke up. Jolting awake in your bed, realizing you were safe and sound, several years in the future, after the peace. There he was, that former monstrosity, clicking loudly when he was startled.

“Hadron,” he said, tilting his head slightly. “Are you okay? You were having a nightmare again.”

“Yeah,” you say. “I’m fine.”

“Was it about me again?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“You say that every single time, I know. It’s in the past, Mobius. Things are different now.”

 

You got up, looking up to the android you’d known now for years. He was the last MT model, you’d heard, the others were killed in the final days of the war. They were harsh hunters, and you’d learned they’d been the cause of about half the deaths in the Derse compound.

After the peace had set in, he was left against his original coding, learning how to bond with humans, just like every other android that was still alive.

 

“Come on, I need something to eat,” you said. You started to walk out, and he quickly followed.

 

Sure, it was strange to see a human roaming around with an android, but people were going to have to get used to it if they were all going to live in peace now.

Several renovations had been made to the tower you lived in since the peace, made to accommodate both humans and androids alike. It’d seem AR, the new leader of the androids, had been extra careful to give it the feel of a compound, because the humans all knew them as safe spaces. Androids did crawl about the place, though, as these places were once where they lived, you guessed. They destroyed the entire city and built right on top of it, using precision only machines were capable of.

 

You ended up in the little cafeteria of the building, a new feature of the place, and it was teeming with life, both natural and artificial. You spotted Beatrice at one table, and headed over to her. She’d been in the infirmary for the past month, recovering from sickness.

As you scurried over, Mobius waved to an android near twice your height a big smile on his face. You’d come to know her as a WQ model, and she seemed to have a mother-son relationship with Mobius. You never knew that androids could have feelings like that for other androids on their own will, but seeing how the androids you’d seen in your life grouped up and defended each other, you supposed they could have some grasp of friendship.

 

You sat next to Beatrice, beaming up at her. Beatrice Quinn was a tall woman, with the most intimidating gaze. She did have a softness to her though, at least to you. You’ve worked with her for the past fifteen years, side-by-side. You stayed with her through the struggles of the Derse compound, and even now you didn’t like to leave her much.

 

“Hello Hadron,” she said, looking down at you, with somewhat of a friendly smile on her face.

“Good morning, Beatrice,” you responded. Mobius settled next to you, curling his four extra appendages against his back.

Her gaze shifted to the tall android, a mix of neutrality and hostility. He simply offered her a grin and a wave.

 

“I don’t get how you fell in love with a thing that tried to kill you,” she said.

“Likewise occurred to AR and that boy Dirk,” Mobius responds to her. “It has happened it the history of humans quite a lot, Hadron seems attracted to anyone who has attempted to murder her, including you, Bea--”

“That’s enough,” you interrupt. “Come on, Mobius, let’s see what they have. I hope it’s not mushed up carrots again. Fucking thing is like baby food.”

“The weather patterns haven’t changed enough in order for you to grow much else.”

“Thanks for the sympathy.”

 

You grab one of his claws, tugging him along.

“I don’t fully understand why you enjoy being around that woman,” Mobius says, gazing up at the ceiling as you walk.

“Beatrice?” you ask.

“She threatened to shoot you when you brought me to your compound,” he says.

“It wasn’t loaded. She’s done it before, I know the trick.”

“It didn’t seem like you did. Your adrenaline levels were higher than normal. I was not aware that humans had a third response to ‘fight or flight’.”

“Well, some of us do,” your gaze caught Spades, who was leaving, instantly. “Not all of us.”

“If you are talking about that Spades boy, he doesn’t have freeze or flight, he simply fights.”

“That’s my point.”

“You’re a strange human, Hadron.”

“I know that.”

 

Peering over to the choices for food, you scowled at the word carrots- the same option that had been there for weeks.

“Okay,” you said, walking off. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Hadron,” Mobius said, turning and following after you. “You still are, you lack the needed energy for a human to function properly for 24 hours--”

“Fuck it.”

“You are a mess.”

“You don’t think I’m aware?”

 

You found yourself back in the room you shared with Mobius, sitting on your bed, face in a book. Mobius was working on whatever little machines he had been occupying himself with building, but looking at it as he built it, you supposed it was equipment for the infirmary, since so many of your friends had gone there in the past few years.

 

He eventually stopped, and used his wires to climb silently to where you were reading.

“You’ve read that same book four times since I met you,” he said, tilting it to read the cover with one of his claws.

“There’s not of books left,” you said.

“Well, you can read people,” he joked.

“Not very well,” you responded with a laugh.

 

He took the book from you, looking it over, flipping through its contents.

“Hadron, you have the condition PTSD, no?”

“Yeah, why?”

He set the book down. “If most of your attacks involve androids, why do you not leave?”

“There’s a lot out there,” you say. “Humans can bring death upon themselves, I’ve seen it happen.”

“You’ve seen a lot.”

“Mhm.” You nod. “Even before the androids, the world was a scary place.”

“You didn’t live before the androids attacked,” he says, tilting his head.

“Oh, I read about it,” you say. “Humans have killed each other countless times.”

“That’s not very healthy for your species, wouldn’t it cause mass extinction?”

“That almost happened, and you know our numbers are dwindling now. Even during the android uprising, humans were murdering each other.”

“Like what Beatrice attempted to do to you?”

“Mobius…”

“Yes, yes, I know, she was testing you to see if you’d gone fully insane.”

“She already knows I have,” you laugh.

 

Suddenly, he kisses you. He’s done this before, but never this out of the blue.

“You haven’t to me,” he says.

“Then you’ve gone insane too.”

“Who’s to say I haven’t?”

 

The following silence was bitter. It always ended up like this, the two of you not talking for a little while, then the conversation going awkward and stale.

 

“Hadron?” Mobius asks, looking down at you.

“Hm?”

“What do you remember of the first time we met?”

You sigh. “I was out scavenging for my compound. I didn’t know that something bigger was going on.”

“Humans lack knowledge of most things outside of their ‘circle’.”

“Yes, and that never really goes in our favor. I was looking for things, and I’d evaded many other androids before I ran into you.”

He tilted his head. “I’ve never heard of a human evading an android.”

“That’s probably because you killed every one you ran into.”

“Except for you.”

“Except for me and everyone after me.”

He grinned.

“I was terrified. I’d been face-to-face with an android before, but you were faster than me, even with my headstart.”

“You had an EMP gun. Those are very rare.”

“We built it. When you cornered me, I was just about to fire it, then you died. My heart was pounding, and I swore I would pass out from exhaustion.”

 

You paused, gazing up at him. “What was it like waking up?”

“I… felt confused. Everything was brand new. You were the first person I saw, I guess that’s why I bonded to you. I was different, everything was different. How about you?”

“I was tempted to kill you.”

“Of course.”

 

The silent fell again, till your phone buzzed angrily. You picked it up, looking over at the message.

“I’ve got to go,” you said, turning to him. He nodded, and gave you another quick kiss.

 

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too.”

  
On your way out, when he wasn’t looking, you kicked open a secret drawer on your cabinet, and as the EMP gun fell out of it, you crushed it with your heel, and left.


End file.
